Rod-holding rack



ROD-HOLDING RACK Filed Aug. 18, 1966 2,3 INVENTOR. A FRANCIS E. W000'ATTORNEYS United States Patent 8 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE Arack for holding rods in an upright position is described which iscapable of reliably holding rods of different diameters in position. Therack includes a lower U-shaped horizontal member having an aperturedslat member through which one end of the rods is to be inserted forsupport on a solid member beneath the aperture member. Spaced above theU-shaped member is a slat member having notches extending into one edgefor holding the upper portion of the rod members. Each notch has arestricted opening across which a tab of flexible material normallyextends. The tab is secured within the notch on one side of the openingand has an unsecured free end normally in overlapping relationship tothe inner surface of a shoulder at the outer side of the opening. Theshoulder acts to prevent the free end of the tab from moving outwardlyrelative to the notch and thereby maintains the opening closed forconfinement of a rod within the notch. However, upon a rod beingforceably inserted through the opening, the tab resiliently yields fromthe opening to permit insertion or withdrawal of a rod.

The present invention relates to racks for storing rod members and moreparticularly to a rack which can store rod members of different sizes.

Racks for holding rod members often are employed for displaying the rodmembers or for storing them ready for use. Such racks frequently aresecured to walls to hold the rod members, such as fishing rods or cues,vertically against the wall. Generally, such racks are able to hold rodmembers of only limited sizes. For example, racks commonly employed instoring cues have spaced apart resilient fingers between which the rodmembers are wedged and held. Because of the spacing between the fingers,rod members having a diameter less than the finger spacing can fall fromthe rack. Besides the inconvenience of having to replace the fallenrods, rods which fall from the rack may be damaged. Hence, in order toproperly store rod members of different sizes, it has been necessaryeither to use different racks having different finger spacings, or touse a single rack whose fingers are spaced at different intervals.

Considerable advantage is therefore to be gained by the provision of asingle multi-purpose rack of uniform construction which is characterizedby being able to store rod members of any size without the likelihoodthat rods of certain sizes will occasionally fall from the rack.Additional advantages will be realized where the rack of the presentinvention is constructed so that rod members of all sizes only forciblycan be placed on and removed from the rack.

The present invention provides an improved rack for storing rod membersas characterized above. More particularly, the present invention is amulti-purpose rack including at least two spaced apart members. One ofthe members is provided with notches along one of its edges for storingrod members. For confining the rod members in the notches, each notchhas a resilient band, for example, of rubber, placed therein and securedto the por- ICC tion of the member defining the notches. Each band istransversely cut to allow rod members to pass therethrough to beinserted and withdrawn from the enclosure defined by the resilient band.In its most preferred embodiment, the resilient band is cut withoutremoving any material, i.e., sliced. In this way, any rod member, nomatter how small its diameter, can be placed within the enclosures, andthe resilient bands will constrain them within the enclosures. Tofurther aid in constraining the rod members within the enclosures, eachband is sliced at a location adjacent the portion of the member definingthe notch proximate the notch opening. Rod members are inserted andwithdrawn from the enclosures by leaving the free end portion of eachhand between the slice and notch unsecured. The unsecured portion ofeach band forms a flexiblie tab which normally extends across the notchopening to close the same, but gives way to a rod being forciblyinserted and withdrawn from each notch enclosure to allow the rodmembers to pass through each band.

In use the rack generally is mounted to a wall with the notched memberspaced above a second member. The second member vertically supports oneend of the rod members being stored by the multi-purpose rack. Thenotched member serves to hold the opposite end of each rod memberagainst the wall. Because of the ability of the rack to properly holdrod members of any size, the rack of the present invention can be usedto store various types of rod members, for example, fishing rods, cues,rifies as well as other devices having rod shaped members. Hence, therack of the present invention can be employed for a variety of purposes,most notably for display, temporary storage and permanent storagepurposes. Furthermore, a single rack constructed in accordance with thepresent invention can be used to store simultaneously different kinds ofrod members, large and small.

Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide amulti-purpose rack for storing rod members of any size.

More particularly, it is an object of the present invention to provide amulti-purpose rack for storing different size rod members without thelikelihood that rods of certain sizes will occasionally fall from therack.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a multi-purposerack wherein rod members of all sizes only forcibly can be placed on andremoved from the rack.

It is still another object of the present invention to provide amulti-purpose rack of uniform construction which simultaneously canstore different size rod members.

The invention possesses other objects and features of advantage, some ofwhich, with the foregoing will be set forth in the following descriptionof the preferred form of the invention which is illustrated in thedrawing accompanying and forming part of the specification. It is to beunderstood, however, that variations in the showing made by the saiddrawing and description may be adopted within the scope of the inventionas set forth in the claims.

FIGURE 1 is a perspective view of one embodiment of the multi-purposerack of the present invention.

FIGURE 2 is a partial perspective view of the rod holding member of therack of FIGURE 1.

FIGURE 3 is a plan view of the rod holding member of FIGURE 2.

FIGURE 4 is a plan view of the rod supporting member of the rack ofFIGURE 1.

FIGURE 5 is a cross sectional view of FIGURE 3 taken along line 5-5.

FIGURE 6 is a cross sectional view of FIGURE 4 taken along line 66.

Referring to FIGURE 1, the multi-purpose rack 11 of the presentinvention includes a first member 12 for holding rod members, such as afishing rod 13. Member 12 defines a plurality of notches 14 along anedge 16 thereof within which rod members 13 are inserted and held. Asecond member 17 is mounted spaced from the member 12 and serves to giveadditional support to the rod members 13 placed on rack 11. The distancebetween the members 12 and 17 is adjusted in accordance with the lengthsof the rod members 13 to be stored on the rack 11. In most uses of themulti-purpose rack 11, the mernbers 12 and 17 are arranged horizontallyto hold the rod members 13 vertically against a wall 18.

The rod members 13 are held within the notches 14 by a resilient rubberband 19 secured within each notch 14 to the portion of the horizontalmember defining each notch 14. As shown in FIGURES 2 and 3, each band19,

defines an enclosure 21 for receiving the rod members 13 to be stored onrack 11. In order to insert and withdraw rod members from the enclosures21, each band 19 is transversely cut at 22, preferably sliced so thatany rod member 13 which can fit into the enclosure 21 will be firmlyheld by the rack 11.

To insure that the rod members 13 are securely held by rack 11, oneembodiment of the rack of the present invention is constructed so thateach notch 14 defined by horizontal member 12 has an inner region 23 oflarger width for holding the rods which are separated from edge 16 by anouter region 24 having a smaller or restricted width portion to definethe notch opening. Horizontal member 12 defines a shoulder 26 interiorlyof the notch opening and extending from the smaller Width portion of theouter region 24 to the larger width of the inner region 24. Theresilient bands 19 are secured to the portion of the horizontal member12 defining the inner region 23. Each band 19 is oriented so that itstransverse slice 22 is positioned adjacent the inner surface of shoulder26. The segment 27 of each band 19 adjacent shoulder 26 between slice 22and the notch opening or smaller width portion of the outer region 24 iskept unsecured. The unsecured segment 27 of band 19 forms with thesegment 28 of band 19 extending across the smaller width portion of theouter region 24 (see left hand notch of FIGURE 3) a flexible tab 29which normally engages the inner surface of shoulder 26 to confine a rodwithin the inner region, but which (see right hand notch of FIGURE 3)gives way to a rod member 13 being inserted and Withdrawn from eachenclosure 21.

With the rack 11 constructed to have the slice 22 of band 19 lyingadjacent the shoulder 26, the rod members 13 must be forcibly insertedand withdrawn from'the rack 11. Hence, with such a construction, theliklihood that the rod members 13 will occasionally fall from the rack11 will be remote.

To facilitate inserting and withdrawing the rod members 13 from theenclosure 21, the horizontal member 12 is constructed to define saddleshaped notches 14 having adjoining trapezoidal outer region 24 andcircular segment inner region 23. Each notch 14 is formed so that thelonger of the parallel sides of the trapezoidal region 24 is at the edge16 of the horizontal member 12. The trapezoidal region extends from theedge 16 to join at its smaller parallel side the circular segment region23. The circular segment region 23 of each notch 14 is a circularsegment greater than 180 degrees to define an arcuate shoulder 26sloping towards the joint formed by the adjoining trapezoidal andcircular segment regions. Each enclosure 21 is defined by circularresilient bands 19 secured to the portion 31 of horizontal member 12defining the circular segment region 23. Because the arcuate shoulder 26slopes towards the trapezoidal region 24, the rod members 13 can beinserted and withdrawn from the enclosure 21 more easily.

With reference to FIGURE 2, the manner in which the rod members areinserted, withdrawn and held within enclosure 21 is shown. Moreparticularly, the left hand notch 14 illustrates the rod member 13positioned within the enclosure 21. The center notch 14 shows the mannerin which the rod members 13 are inserted into the enclosure 21. Asillustrated, the rod members being inserted within the enclosure 21force the flexible tab 29 inwardly away from the shoulder 26 to allowthe rod members to pass from the trapezoidal region 24 into the circularenclosure 21. The right hand notch 14 shows how the rod members 13 arewithdrawn from the enclosure 21. As portrayed, the rod members beingwithdrawn froce the flexible tab 29 outwardly to allow them to pass fromthe circular enclosure 21 to the trapezoidal region 24.

The foregoing description has been concerned with the detailed manner inwhich the rack 11 holds one end of the rod members to be stored thereon.Considering now horizontal member 17, attention is directed to FIGURESl, 4 and 6. To fix in position the rod members being stored, horizontalmember 17 is a U-shaped member having an apertured upper member 32 and asolid lower member 33 interconnected by a web member 34. The U-shapedhorizontal member 17 is mounted so that the apertured member 32 facesthe notched horizontal member 12. The apertures 36 defined by U-shapedmember 17 preferably are in vertical registry with the notches 14defined by member 12 so that each aperture 36 receives the end of therod member 13 held in the registered notch 14. Solid member 33 receivesthe ends of the rod members 13 thereon and renders vertical support tothe rod members 13.

By employing the aforedescribed U-shaped horizontal member 17, furtherinsurance against rods occasionally falling from the rack 11 isobtained. As noted hereinabove, the solid member 33 provides verticalsupport to the stored rod members 13. The apertured member 32 preventsthe stored rod members 13 from slipping sideways along or off the solidmember 33 whereby the rod members 13 can vertically slip out ofenclosure 21. It should be noted that the side slipping could' beprevented without using the aperture member 32 by providing recesses insolid member 33;

In its simplest form, the horizontal members of rack 11 are separatelymounted to the wall 18. With reference to FIGURES 5 and 6, the rack 11can be mounted to wall 18 by securing L-shaped brackets 37 to thenotched horizontal member 12 at spaced locations, and fastening the'brackets to wall 18. The U-shaped horizontal member 17 can be fastenedto the wall 18 by'screws (not shown) passed through screw holes 38provided at spaced locations along web member 34. Of course othertechniques can be employed to secure the rack 11 to the wall 18, forexample, the horizontal members could be placed in a frame which in turncould be secured to the wall 18.

In one rack constructed in accordance with the present invention'forstoring fishing rods, the horizontal members 12, 32, 33 and 34 wereslats 2 inches wide and inch thick, the apertures 36 were 1 inch indiameter, the large parallel side of the trapezoidal region 24 of notch14 was /8 inch, the small parallel side A inch, the depth of region 24was inch, the distance from edge 16 to the center of curvature ofcircular segment region 23 was 1% inches, the radius of curvature "ofthe circular segment region 23 was inch, the spacing between members 32and 33 was 1% inches, the spacing between horizontal members 12 and 17was 48 inches, and rubber resilient member was fi inch thick.

- While the multi-purpose rack of the present invention has 'beendescribed in detail with reference to a single embodiment, it isapparent that numerous modification are possible within the scope of theinvention. For example, instead of using a 'band of resilient materialin each notch 14, a length of resilient material placed across eachnotch opening could be employed, the length of resilient materialarranged to function in the manner of resilient tab 29. Also slice 22could be positioned in the notch opening. Hence, the present inventionis not intended to be limited except by the terms of the followingclaims.

What is claimed is:

1. A rack for holding rod members comprising a first member forsupporting one end of a rod member, a second member mounted in spacedrelationship to said first member and having at least one notch at anedge thereof adapted to receive and support a rod member, said notchhaving a restricted width portion defining an opening into an enlargedrod holding portion thereof, and a tab of flexible material extendingacross said restricted portion to normally close said opening, said tabbeing secured within said notch on one side of said restricted widthportion and having an unsecured free end overlapping the inner surfaceof a shoulder defined at the other side of said restricted widthportion, said shoulder normally blocking movement of the free end ofsaid tab outwardly of said notch to thereby maintain said tab in closingrelation across said opening to confine a rod member within the rodholding portion of said notch, and said ta-b yielding resiliently to aforcea'ble insertion of a rod member through said opening to permitintentional insertion or wthdrawal of such rod member.

2. The rack according to claim 1 further including a third membermounted closely spaced from said first member between said first andsecond members, said third member defining an aperture in verticalregistry with each notch to receive therethrough the end of said nodmembers supported on said first member.

3. The rack according to claim 1 wherein each notch is saddle shapedhaving an arcuate portion defined by said second member distal itsnotched edge to define said enlarged rod holding portion, and saidresilient member is a band secured to said second member along itsportion defining the arcuate portion of said saddle shaped notch and istransversely sliced to provide said unsecured free end allowing rodmembers to pass therethrough.

4. The rack according to claim 3 wherein each saddle shaped notchdefined by said second member has a trapezoidal portion extendinginwardly from said notched edge with its base at said notched edge andadjoining a circular segment portion greater than 180 degrees whichprovides said rod holding portion.

5. The rack according to claim 4 wherein said resilient band is circularand is secured to said member along its portion defining said circularsegment portion of said notch, said resilient band is sliced at alocation adjacent the portion of said member defining said circularsegment portion proximate the joint formed by said adjoining circularsegment and trapezoidal portion of said notch.

6. The rack according to claim 5 wherein said first and third membersare joined by a web member to define therewith an integral U-shapedchannel member.

7. The rack according to claim 6 wherein said first member is a slat,said second member is a slat defining a plurality of said saddle shapednotches along one of its edges, and said third member is a slat defininga plurality of apertures in vertical registry with said saddle shapednotches.

8. The rack according to claim 7 further including a first means forhorizontally mounting said second memher to a wall with said notchededge facing away from said wall, and a second means for horizontallymounting said U-shaped channel member to said wall.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 407,560 7/1889 Wilson et a1.21167 450,858 4/1891 Zan 211- 658,042 9/ 1900 Mendel 21163 722,546 3/1903 Werle 211-62 1,174,185 3/1916 Scott 211-68 1,221,584 4/1917 Patrick21160 X 1,678,353 7/ 1928 Reach 21160 X 2,721,680 10/1955 Steckman2l1--60 X CHANCELLOR E. HARRIS, Primary Examiner.

FRANK DOMOTOR, Assistant Examiner.

U.S. Cl. X.R. 248-

